Who better to deal with a class of little monsters than a toothy, green-skinned teacher with a lizard’s tail and witchy powers? In Nash’s otherwise-familiar classroom scenes, many of the children really are juvenile versions of famous Creature Feature creatures: a vampirelet, a loosely-wrapped mummy, a furry wolf-boy, a black-clad child whose last name has to be Addams, and so on. The young narrator regards his “creature teacher” with a mix of respect and affection, whether she’s rejecting his “ . . . taped and glued / assignments that my werewolf chewed,” dispatching a bully to the Principal’s office aboard a flying broom, or leading everyone outside “for recess time / to jump and play in piles of slime.” Despite plenty of extra limbs and googly eyes, there’s not a trace of eeriness here; even sensitive or younger readers will respond with giggles rather than shivers to this tongue-in-cheek tribute—and likely take to heart the closing line: “So if your creature teacher’s near— / thank her for her help this year!” Quite a contrast to Edith Pattou’s Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden, illustrated by Tricia Tusa (2001), but the message is the same. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-029694-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tall-tale introduction to the ``King of the Keelboatmen,'' from the time he ran away from home at the age of two days to his literally explosive confrontation with steamboat captain Hilton B. Blathersby. The historical Fink was a cruel man who came to a violent end, but Kellogg depicts him as a friendly-looking, fun-loving youth; indeed, nearly all of the keelboatmen here- -black, white, old, and young—are smiling, clean-cut types, rather at odds with their usual roughneck image. Though Fink spends much of his time wrestling men or bears, Kellogg's description of him seems bland in comparison to his glowing, energetic illustrations, and less heroic than his other legendary figures. (Picture book/Folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-07003-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
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